


Healing Scars

by Aeruthin



Series: Original Family Short Stories [3]
Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 14:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20762192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeruthin/pseuds/Aeruthin
Summary: Hayley shares a story of her past.





	Healing Scars

Hayley's skin tingles as Elijah's fingers brush across her back. She shivers, but doesn't open her eyes. The warmth of the bed surrounds her, and the comfortable drowsiness of sleep lingers in her limbs. She buries her face in her pillow, blocking out the sun and enjoying the quiet morning.

Elijah continues trailing patterns on her skin, and Hayley just starts drifting away when his hand pauses above her left hip. She stills as he traces the same path a couple of times. She knows what he noticed there. 

She stretches and turns around. Elijah is lying half upright against the head of the bed, slightly turned towards her. 

"Good morning," he says with a soft smile.

"Hey," she answers. She grabs the hand that was touching her and laces her fingers through his. Elijah tilts his head. 

"Are you alright?"

Hayley realizes that she has been staring. She flashes a smile at him and nods.

"Yeah, fine."

"How'd you get that scar?"

Hayley sighs and looks away. 

"Never mind. Forget I asked." Elijah presses a kiss against her head. For a moment, Hayley considers letting it go. She hasn't really told the story to anyone. No one had bothered to ask. It feels like a lifetime ago anyway, as if it happened to someone else. Still, she finds herself answering.

"No, it's alright, I can tell you."

Her voice catches. Elijah waits patiently as Hayley takes a deep breath and gathers her thoughts.

"I was fourteen. I thought I knew everything about the world." She chuckles. "Mostly I was convinced everyone was against me."

It must all seem very silly to a thousand year old vampire.

"I ran with the wrong crowd," Hayley admits. "That hasn't changed," she adds jokingly.

Elijah smiles and dips his head.

"We got into trouble. A fight. I don't even know about what. I think we owed them money. One of the guys pulls out a knife. I was the smallest so they managed to grab me."

It had been late at night, near the train station, at the spot where the small drugs dealers got teenagers to make deals. She had been following around a guy named Chaster and his girlfriend Sam. They'd been two years older, and she thought the world of them. When the shouting had started, and when the arm had closed around her neck, she had been terrified. Chaster and Sam had been as frightened as she was, and for a second she had been sure that they'd abandon her and leave her to her fate.

"There was so much yelling. No one knew what to do. And then they stabbed me."

The wound hadn't registered at first, as if her body had to figure out what had happened. It had never had to deal with being stabbed before. But then the pain had spread, and her hand had come away with blood, and everyone was looking horrified. The dealers were barely older than they had been, and they'd fled seconds later. 

Elijah squeezes her hand, their fingers still interlaced.

"Everyone panicked. They got me to the hospital somehow."

She shakes her head. "My foster parents were so angry."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Elijah says.

Hayley shrugs. "It was a long time ago."

Elijah considers this, tilting his head. 

"Not that long," he concludes with a slight narrowing of his eyes and a small smile. 

Hayley hits his chest playfully. "For you maybe," she teases. "What were you doing during the 2000s?"

Elijah plucks at something in her hair.

"Plotting my brother's demise."

Hayley knows he isn't joking, and she recognizes the hidden pain. She isn't going to let the past ruin their morning any more than it already has, though, so she pushes herself up and kisses him deeply.

Her fourteen year old self could never have imagined the life she was living now, in bed with a vampire, her beautiful baby daughter only a door away. All in all, things could have turned out a lot worse.


End file.
